President Donald Trump may have made the decision to launch the war that undermined voter support for the Republican Party and gave them a midterm bombing. But historic losses are accelerating pressure for someone else to take the fall: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
And the House could vote as early as next week to impeach the Pentagon’s top leader.
Many Republican lawmakers and allies alarmed by Tuesday’s wipeout are quick to lay blame for the election results on Hegseth, arguing behind the scenes that he played a major role in convincing Trump to attack Iran without an exit strategy — and without a plan to handle the inevitable political fallout.
The daggers drawn campaign is coming despite private recognition from House and Senate Republican strategists that the party’s problems extended well beyond the war, triggering 2008-level losses that will take years to reverse. But for now, party leaders — and many in their ranks — are still unwilling to directly blame Trump for their woes.
Even among House Republicans who survived Tuesday’s onslaught, they are not expected to suddenly part ways with the president with two years left in his term. Yet that loyalty does not extend to Hegseth, the combative defense secretary who has made few friends on Capitol Hill since taking command of the Pentagon.
House Republicans are expected to vote to directly repudiate the defense secretary within days. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the famously anti-Trump Republican lawmaker, told CNN he plans to call a vote to impeach Hegseth when Congress returns next week — and several Republican sources said they expected it to pass.
Hegseth, a staunch supporter of war, oversold the United States’ ability to win the conflict quickly and easily, several Republicans argued at CNN, describing on condition of anonymity why many in their party are now turning against the defense secretary. They accused him of continuing to argue for escalation despite few signs that continued bombing has brought Iran closer to capitulation.
The conflict has since spiraled into a quagmire, they said, indefinitely entangling the United States in the Middle East, deepening the affordability crisis and sparking the midterm voter revolt against the Republican Party. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance issued an extraordinary statement that “the reason we lost was the war,” although he did not assign specific responsibility for the conflict.
“The pivot begins” on the war and Hegseth, a former senior Pentagon official said. “This is primarily a War Department-led effort because you chose to take military action to resolve a foreign policy issue. »
Yet despite efforts around him to ratchet up the pressure on Hegseth, Trump’s confidence in his defense secretary has not yet wavered, even as he continues to question allies about her performance, several White House officials told CNN.
Trump personally likes Hegseth and has told aides he believes he should fight efforts to impeach him or launch investigations into his decision-making.
“Just two days ago, the president was in the room with him saying, ‘You’re my best man. You’re the best I have,'” one of the officials said.
Trump may also feel an additional need to keep Hegseth around if he chooses to move forward with additional strikes against Iran, another source familiar with his thinking told CNN, particularly with the new Democratic majority in the Senate likely to complicate any administration effort to confirm new Cabinet nominees.
Asked Wednesday about Hegseth’s employment status, Trump defended the war effort and denied any plans to fire him, saying he thought the defense secretary was “doing a very good job.”
“If I had to do it again, I would have to do it again,” Trump said of his decision to go to war.
The White House also decried the prospect of Democratic investigations into the Pentagon, with spokesperson Lauren Bis saying in a statement that “if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”
But some Republicans say it may only be a matter of time before Trump looks for someone to blame for midterm losses, and they see Hegseth as an obvious target.
“If the president really wants anyone to take responsibility, it’s Pete Hegseth,” a Republican close to the White House said of the election brawl. “Pete has been either dishonest or incorrect – which is not acceptable – about deadlines, goals and objectives from the beginning.”
Trump has not yet announced plans to fire senior officials. But in the wake of the Republican Party’s midterm defeat, allies and advisers widely expect him to oversee some level of changes within the administration.
In Trump’s orbit, some have used Hegseth’s likely impeachment as further justification to scapegoat him for an embarrassing rebuke of Trump’s presidency — saying he is doomed to become a central target of Democrats’ anger over the war anyway.
Hegseth, for his part, has been defiant about his ability to withstand the next wave of congressional scrutiny.
Although he has occasionally discussed his potential future ambitions with allies — including his possible run for office in Tennessee — those closest to Trump do not believe that is one of his immediate goals, people familiar with the discussions said. (Some Republicans on the Hill, meanwhile, privately bristle at the idea of Hegseth serving in Congress.)
Immediately after Tuesday’s midterm election results, a person close to Hegseth told CNN that Trump’s defense secretary still hoped to stay in office and was prepared to fight an impeachment attempt.
Hegseth has also made clear to the White House that he is willing to take ownership of every policy decision and action the Pentagon makes, the person said, believing he is well equipped to defend those decisions in public hearings that would likely become contentious if Democrats launch them after taking control of Congress in January.
In a statement, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said Hegseth “will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch false investigations where no wrongdoing exists.”
“We will continue to lead President Trump’s agenda at the War Department – despite threats of a fake witch hunt from Democrats – and Secretary Hegseth is 100 percent committed to leading the Department through the end of President Trump’s term,” Parnell said.
Yet once Congressional scrutiny intensified, Trump’s advisers and allies wondered how long Hegseth’s resolve could last. Even before Tuesday, several White House officials, members of the president’s political operation and Trump’s allies were candidly acknowledging that the war in Iran was — in their view — their biggest responsibility for the midterms. And Hegseth, one of the biggest supporters of military action in Iran, is intrinsically linked to that responsibility, they added.
“I think he probably knows he’s dead but would like an exit dramatic enough to give him a launching pad to run for POTUS,” one administration official said.
For skeptics of the Iranian administration’s open-ended war in Iran, successfully ousting Hegseth from the Pentagon would mark a crucial victory — but only the first step in a broader effort to end the fighting.
After all, Massie noted, Trump continued to argue for continuing the war in Iran, regardless of the political and economic price paid at home.
“You don’t ruin an election that badly with one issue,” Massie said. “This would have been completely avoidable if they had simply broken away from the cult of Donald Trump.”
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